Transcript Lsn 29 Early Cold War

Early Cold War
Lsn 28
ID & SIG:
• Bay of Pigs, Berlin Airlift, Berlin Wall, Cold
War, containment, Cuban Missile Crisis,
Greek Civil War, Hungarian Revolt,
Kennan, NATO, Potsdam Conference,
Prague Spring, Stalin, Warsaw Pact
Agenda
• The Cold War
• The Truman Doctrine and the Greek Civil War
(1947)
• The Berlin Airlift (1948)
• NATO (1948) and the Warsaw Pact (1955)
• The Hungarian Challenge (1956)
• Bay of Pigs (1961)
• Berlin Wall (1961)
• Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)
• The Prague Spring (1968)
Cold War
• A state of political
tension and military
rivalry between
nations that stops
short of full-scale war,
especially that which
existed between the
United States and
Soviet Union following
World War II
Potsdam Conference July 17 to
Aug 2, 1945
By the time of the Potsdam
Conference, Stalin had
already installed communist
governments in the central
European countries under
his influence
Churchill, Truman, and
Stalin at Potsdam
Marriage of Convenience
• “If Hitler invaded
Hell, I would at
least make
favorable
reference to the
Devil in the
House of
Commons.”
– Winston
Churchill
American Soldiers Liberate Paris
Russian Soldiers “Liberate” Berlin
• 90,000 women reported
being raped in Berlin
• “Can’t you understand it if
a soldier who has
crossed thousands of
kilometers through blood
and fire has fun with a
women or takes a trifle?”
– Stalin responding to
complaints of Red Army
atrocities in Yugoslavia
American and Russian Soldiers Meet at
the Elbe River Apr 25, 1945
• But, with the common enemy gone, the marriage
of convenience quickly dissolved.
• Europe divides; Cold War begins
World War II Casualties
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Country
Soviet Union
United States
Great Britain
Germany
Japan
France
Italy
Battle Deaths
6,115,000
291,557
357,116
3,250,000
1,270,000
201,568
149,496
Wounded
14,012,000
670,846
369,267
7,250,000
140,000
400,000
66,716
Source: Information Please Almanac (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1988)
Iron Curtain
President Truman at the podium
with Winston Churchill in Fulton,
Missouri where Churchill delivered
his Iron Curtain speech
Iron Curtain
• “From Stettin on the Baltic to Trieste on the
Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across
the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals
of the ancient states of central and eastern
Europe– Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna,
Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest, and Sofia.
From what I have seen of our Russian friends
and allies during the war I am convinced that
there is nothing they admire so much as
strength and nothing for which they have
less respect than military weakness.”
– Winston Churchill March 5, 1946
George Kennan and Containment
• Kennan was a Soviet expert and director of the
State Department’s Policy Planning Staff
• In the July 1947 issue of Foreign Affairs he
wrote an article under the pen name “Mr. X”
titled “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.”
• He described the USSR as being driven by an
aggressive and uncompromising ideology that
would stop “only when it meets some
unanswerable force.”
George Kennan and Containment
• Kennan wrote that the
US must adopt a
“policy of firm
containment
designed to confront
the Russians with
unalterable
counterforce at every
point where they show
signs of encroaching
upon the interests of a
peaceful and stable
world.”
Greek Civil War
• During the German
occupation of Greece
during WWII, the
Communists and other
parts of the Greek Left
formed a resistance army
called the National
People's Liberation Army
(ELAS)
• By 1944, ELAS controlled
large areas of the country
and continued to have
success against the British
liberation force after the
war
Truman Doctrine
• On Feb 21, 1947, the British
informed the US that they were
pulling out of Greece.
• On March 3, the Greek
government requested US aid.
• On March 12, President Truman
announced the Truman
Doctrine:
– “I believe that it must be the
policy of the United States to
support free peoples who
are resisting attempted
subjugation by armed
minorities or by outside
pressures.”
Harry Truman
JUSMAPG
• On 22 May, Truman
signed a bill authorizing
$400 million in aid to
Greece and Turkey.
• By 1952, Greek forces
would receive $500
million in US aid.
• Even more important
was LTG James Van
Fleet and his 350-man
Joint US Military
Advisory and Planning
Group.
Grumman Avengers and Curtis
Helldivers aboard the USS
Leyte preparing for operations
over Greece in 1948
Success
• Van Fleet set out to
retrain and reorganize the
Greek Army and cut off
the flow of supplies
reaching guerrillas from
Yugoslavia, Albania, and
Bulgaria
• On Oct 16, 1949,
Greece’s Communist
leaders announced a
cease-fire
“As in Greece, the enemy strikes from sanctuary”
Occupied Berlin
Berlin Airlift
• In June 1948, the Soviet
Union attempted to control all
of Berlin by cutting surface
traffic to and from West Berlin.
• The Truman Administration
initiated a daily airlift which
brought much needed food
and supplies into West Berlin.
• The airlift lasted until the end
of September 1949 -although on May 12, 1949, the
Soviet government had
yielded and lifted the
blockade.
Berlin Airlift
The maximum effort of the airlift was the “Easter Parade”
on April 16, 1949 when 1,398 sorties (one landing in Berlin
every minute) delivered 12,940 short tons.
Berlin Airlift
NATO and Warsaw Pact
• In 1949 the US, Belgium, Canada, Denmark,
France, Great Britain, Iceland, Italy,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and
Portugal form the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization to provide collective security
against Soviet aggression
• Provided a military and political complement to
the Marshall Plan
• Greece and Turkey joined in 1952
• NATO admitted West Germany in 1954 and
allowed it to rearm
• The Soviets respond by creating the Warsaw
Pact in 1955
NATO and Warsaw Pact
The Hungarian Challenge
• The most serious
challenge to the
spreading Soviet control
of eastern Europe came
in 1956 when large
numbers of Hungarian
citizens demanded
democracy and breaking
ties with Moscow and the
Warsaw Pact
• Massive street
demonstrations ensued
The Hungarian Challenge
• The Soviets viewed these
developments as a threat to their
security system and sent tanks to
Budapest to crush the uprising
• Hungarian dissidents appealed to
the US for help, but short of fullscale war, there was really little the
US could do
• Additionally, the recent British,
French, and Israeli invasion of the
Suez had damaging Western
credibility as non-aggressors
Fidel Castro
• In the early 1950s Cuba was
controlled by a moderate rightwing military regime that was
friendly to the US government
and businesses
• The US supported Fulgencio
Batista as an anti-communist
and a proponent of the US in
domestic and international
policies
• However, in 1959 Fidel Castro
was able to mobilize the
disaffected rural peasants and
topple Batista’s regime
A Cuban crowd listens to Castro
after his takeover
Fidel Castro
• Castro assumed
dictatorial powers and
announced his goal was
to create a society based
on Marxist principles
• He nationalized largescale landholdings,
sought economic aid from
the Soviet Union, and
tried to export revolution
throughout Latin America
through peasant and
urban guerrilla warfare
Che Guevara directed many of
Castro’s Latin American operations
until he was killed in Bolivia in
1967
Bay of Pigs
• The US could not accept the
presence of a revolutionary
Marxist government so close to
its borders and President
Eisenhower authorized planning
for a force of anti-Castro
Cubans to invade Cuba and
overthrow Castro
• When Kennedy became
president he authorized the
invasion but stipulated that the
US not be involved in the
landing itself
Bay of Pigs
• The invasion took place at the
Bay of Pigs in April 1961 and
proved to be a disaster
• Instead of rallying to the
invaders, the local population
supported the Castro
government
• The failure embarrassed the
US and weakened President
Kennedy in the eyes of the
Soviet Union
– However, it strengthened
Kennedy’s personal
resolve to act more
vigorously in any future
crisis
Castro helping to repel the
invasion
Berlin Wall
• By 1961 a steady flow of
refugees to West
Germany was
hemorrhaging East
Germany
• In August the East
Germans began
construction of a wall to
divide the cities of East
and West Berlin
• Guards were ordered to
shoot to kill
Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall
• The Wall was 107 kilometers
long and 4 meters high in most
places.
• About 100 people died trying
to escape past the Wall
• The last was on June 2,
1989
Cuban Missile Crisis
• Castro feared the US
would try again to
overthrow him and he
called for additional
support from the Soviet
Union
• Soviet Premier Nikita
Khrushchev responded
by sending mediumrange bombers and
missiles to Cuba to help
defend Castro and
threaten the US
• In Oct 1962, US spy
planes discovered missile
sites under construction
in Cuba
Map used to brief the range of missiles
and bombers being deployed to Cuba.
Kennedy’s Response
• Kennedy
responded
decisively,
demanding that the
Soviets remove the
missiles and
bombers or face
their destruction by
air strikes or
invasion
• He also imposed a
naval “quarantine”
of Cuba
Quarantine
The US destroyer Joseph P. Kennedy stops, boards, and inspects a dry-cargo
ship of Lebanese registry under Soviet charter to Cuba on Oct 26, 1962
US Victory
• On Oct 28, Khrushchev
agreed to remove the
missiles
• “Eyeball to eyeball,
they blinked first.”
– Dean Rusk, US
Secretary of State
• The Cuban Missile
Crisis had shown the
dangers of nuclear
apocalypse in the
bipolar world
• It was a major Cold
War victory for the US
and a major loss of
face for the Soviet
Union and Khrushchev
1962 British cartoon showing Kennedy and
Khrushchev arm wrestling on top of
nuclear weapons
“Prague Spring”
• In 1968 Alexander Dubcek launched a
“democratic socialist revolution” in
Czechoslovakia known as the “Prague Spring”
which promised to be “socialism with a human
face”
• The Soviets feared such ideas could spread and
threaten their control over Eastern Europe so
they dispatched troops, along with Germany,
Bulgaria, and Poland, to crush the movement
“Prague Spring”
• Soviet premier Leonid
Brezhnev justified the action
by the “Brezhnev Doctrine,”
which reserved for the
USSR the right to invade
any socialist country that
was deemed to be
threatened by internal or
external elements “hostile to
socialism”
• The swift Soviet action in
Czechoslovakia reasserted
Soviet control over its
satellites
Cold War Society
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• Korean War